Page 64 of The 21-Day Boyfriend
I spin around to face him. “You’ve never set foot in this place.”
“I wanted to talk to you, and you weren’t answering my calls.”
“I’m at work. When I’m at work, I don’t pick up my phone.”
“Are you always at work, then? I’ve been trying to reach you for days.”
“I don’t believe I owe you an explanation.”
“But I think I owe you one.”
“Now? Seriously?”
“I didn’t want you to find out like that. I wanted to be the one to tell you.”
“If you’re referring to the fact that you’re marrying your new…”
I can’t even think about it.
“We’re not getting married right away, but yeah, it’s a real commitment.”
“Is that what they’re calling it now?”
“I didn’t know you’d be going to the event, or that your dad would announce it so publicly. I thought I had more time, and…”
“More time? You needed more time to tell me you’d decided to get married? It didn’t take you long to find someone else, though… Ah, right. You already had him lined up and ready.”
“You know that’s not what happened. I never cheated on you.”
“Sleeping with someone isn’t the only way to cheat. You were already… We were together, but you…”
“I was already in love with him.”
It doesn’t hurt any less. It will never hurt any less.
“We have so much in common. We’re so compatible.”
“Compatible,” I repeat through gritted teeth.
Such an impersonal word that he used to use to describe us.
I should’ve known it wouldn’t last. I should’ve known I would never have been enough.
“But you chose a different path.”
“Are you telling me that if I’d become a doctor like you, like my father, things would’ve gone differently?”
“When we first met, we had the same dream.”
“That was never my dream, and you always knew that.”
“Then what was? This?” he asks, gesturing to the restaurant behind him. “Is this your dream?”
“You wouldn’t get it.”
“Maybe you’re right. Maybe that’s the problem between us. We don’t get each other. You don’t get what it means to save lives, and I don’t get what it means to cook for people.”
“Cook for people? Is that all you think I do?”
